Synopsis

One of the New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2013 and named by The Christian Science Monitor as one of the top 15 works of fiction

The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family, ordinary in every way but one.

Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion … she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister.” As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.

In We Are All Completely beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date—a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

Good read.

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This book was surprising because of the nature of the topic. We sympathize with the narrator for her loss of family, then we learn who and what they are, and it is mind boggling, but explains so much of the way she sees the world. It is a fast read, but I know I missed some pieces.

Fabulous read

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When you hear about the storyline you may think hmmm, kind of weird and maybe not my kind of book -- I mean seriously, a story of a girl and her sister the ape? But it is an incredible story of the effects of "best intentions", and the outcome of the little and big lies we tell even as children. How does anyone survive their family?
Highly recommended

by TracyNon November 11, 2014

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

by Karen Joy Fowler

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